Posted
by
samzenpuson Saturday September 11, 2010 @06:15PM
from the buried-alive dept.

theodp writes "TechFlash reports that Microsoft celebrated the completion and upcoming launch of Windows Phone 7 on Friday with a 'Windows Phone Pride Parade' complete with zombies, a 'Thriller' Dance, and pallbearers carrying a giant iPhone. 'These kind of "ship" parties are common throughout the industry,' explained Microsoft communications VP Frank Shaw. 'It's a great way for teams that have worked overtime to create a kick-ass product blow off steam and have a little fun.'"

The Zune might not have killed the iPOD but it still remains a much better product. Just like Zune 2.0 software is light years ahead of iTunes 10. I've owned a Zune first Gen., I own a Zune HD, I've used iPods all flavors and i own and iPhone 4 which I don't use for music, yuck! And... yeah, Zune wins for compatibility with standards as well as human interface.

1. Windows 7 mobile will need to be THAT much better then the iPhone. It can't be a little better or have a few different features.

2. Android is a good platform too and is a easier sell to other hardware manufactures. And has already took Microsofts place as the the OS for all the other Cell Phones.

3. How well are they going to follow the Internet standards. As some one who does make web UI for phones I am estatic that I can use proper standard HTML 5. Windows 7 may have some surprises when it gets to some advanced mobile sites.

4. Who are they going to target. Across RIM Apple and Android you have a lot of people who are happy with their phones.

Vista? It's still alive... It came with many computer and many users are still using it. Besides, 7 is nothing more than Vista a bit tuned. There are still many things that irk me about sevens interface. (Like no vertical lines in a directory tree... WTF were they thinking?) Luckily you can downgrade Vista Business, which is what came with some PCs at work. Those all run XP Pro now. To get 7 we'd have to shell out money and I'm really not all that convinced of any benefits of Seven. (Bar 64-bit supp

I think you can get XP on any computer. Just install a pirated copy. It will fail the Windows Genuine Advantage check (or whatever it's called). You will be given a phone number to call to fix the problem (ie, pay for a license).

The difference is that Apple only charged people $29 for the Snow Leopard upgrade. The Vista to 7 upgrade was, uh just a bit more [microsoftstore.com]

I use both OS X and Windows 7, but for me the big difference is that Leopard was a good OS and for $29 SL was reasonable. Vista, in my personal experience was shitty, and in no way do I feel like paying $150 or more to upgrade to what Vista should have been in the first place.

Windows Mobile 7 may be great, but I'd suggest to Microsoft that they at least have a bit of success before declaring their major competitors dead and fucking up a Michael Jackson song...

Um no. Only certain versions of Vista allowed for free upgrades. If you got Vista Starter, Vista Home Basic, or Vista Enterprise, you were not eligible. Also you limited to the same version as you had before.

The Kin failed because it was a somewhat-smarter-than-a-free-with-activation phone selling at smartphone prices. From what I've seen Windows Mobile 7 might have a shot at a respectable market share but I think it will be insufficient to fend off the onslaught of Android and IPhone,

I haven't seen much of Windows 7 that puts it above Android and iPhone. In some respects, it appears several years behind the other two. The only thing that has kept WinMobile relevant has been business users. Windows 7 is breaking all backwards compatibility forcing those users to migrate.

MS has been nothing if not consistent in mobile phone marketshare. Up til now, I'd characterize it as not even really trying seriously. Now that they have started to try in earnest, every move they make is a huge head scratcher.

Kin is a shining example of MS not 'getting it'.

Every demo and discussion of WinMo7 seems to show that not only do they not get it, but they are actively screwing over WinMo6 users too. Sideloaded apps? No, copying Apple means none of that. Copy and paste? No, they copy iPhone 2G. Multitasking? Again... no.. Decent UI? No, that would mean knocking off Apple *too* much....

Android is taking it without any contest (though I like WebOS better).

After looking at Wikipedia's KIN Missing Features page [wikipedia.org], I found that every single bullet point there deserves a Picard Faceplam. I mean, no calendar app? At all? Even Free w/Activation phones get some kind of calendar app.

The Danger built system just happened to be the big one that failed after MS aquired them (and not a backup to be found... oops).

A year after MS acquired them, the Danger systems failed. It has not been explicitly explained but one rumor is that a SAN upgrade went wrong. You don't know why. Maybe MS decided that Danger should eat the dogfood and this led to the failure. This is what happened to hotmail.

I've come to the conclusion that Danger was a poor aquisition (i.e. waste of money) for Microsoft.

MS acquired Danger to get a head start on what would become the Kin. Two MS decisions would doom it. First MS decided to scrap the Java based system and redo everything with Windows CE because a MS product could never use Java. Second, the head of division didn't want both Kin and Win 7 Phone so he withheld resources from the Kin team. Those decisions delayed the launch by at least 18 months.

Verizon had as much to do with Kin's failure as Microsoft/Danger.... underpowered smart phone targeted at a teen/social audience, but with outrageous data/service prices.

What? Verizon didn't decide on the hardware or software. Those were MS decisions. As for the data prices, Verizon was willing to give MS users a break on the prices so that they could get the Sidekick users (teenagers), however, MS was 18 months late so they didn't give MS a break in the end. 18 months is almost 2 generations in cell phone lifetime and rather unacceptable.

Even in the height of the Win Mobile usage, users were not exactly clamoring for one. They got one because it was one of the few choices that they had for business. With Win 7 Phone, MS has broken all backwards compatibility meaning there is no reason why business users have to stay with MS. With the current feature set, it appears that MS is abandoning business users completely and going after consumers

The usual Microsoft fanboys at IDC and Gartner have both weighed in. They don't see Windows Phone 7 being a breakout hit - at best it gets 7 points of share before Windows Mobile resumes its long decline.

It's one thing to hold a ship party celebrating your product. It's another to predict that your product will be the demise of your competitor who has been kicking your butt for the last several years when your last several attempts have been laughably pathetic. It's called arrogance, hubris, delusion, etc.

Or it could be they're just having fun after a lot of work. Everyone hopes their product will be the one that wins out. The market will decide in the end, so for now let them have their fun, and you can go do something more productive.

It smacks of desperation. There is a ploy in politics where if you have nothing real to say, smear the other side. The other problem is that MS somehow believes for them to win, Apple must fail. I don't think Apple has ever determined that they must win. Apple seems to be more concerned with making a better product more than anything else. Really no one has to "win" at all. Some people will buy Blackberries; some people will buy Androids. Some people will buy Apple. They can all exist in the marke

Yes but was that by choice? After the iPhone stomping incident by Ballmer how many devs would show an iPhone or Android. MS Devs having a Win 7 Phone is nothing. When MS accountants, HR people, security guards, etc are asking for a Win 7 Phone, then that might worth noting.

Hm, of course it was by choice -- from what I can tell (based on the occasional talk about phones), "ordinary people" (i.e., not Balmer and other "public faces") at MS are pretty much as infatuated with the iphone as the rest of the country is... it's the cool thing to have, even there.

People talk about the Steve Jobs reality distortion field that affects people near him. The MS RDF engulfs the entire metro. It's really pathetic to witness.

Steve Jobs' RDF can't be seen for the same reason the magnetosphere can't be seen. It's around all of us, with a radius measured in thousands of miles. I wouldn't be surprised if it's effecting people in low Earth orbit.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say they're still sore about the "I'm a Mac" ads. Although they weren't very accurate and they were arrogant as hell, Microsoft's responses ("look ma, cheap PC with a ton of bloatware I don't need!" and of course Seinfeld & Bill) have been absolutely pathetic-- and in the case of mobile, they had a golden opportunity to rip Apple a good one over their response to the iPhone 4 antenna design flaw. I mean, come on... they had a ton of examples from other handset makers.

Watching Microsoft's recent PR is sort of like watching a grown man miss a tee-ball. In three swings.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say they're still sore about the "I'm a Mac" ads. Although they weren't very accurate and they were arrogant as hell, Microsoft's responses ("look ma, cheap PC with a ton of bloatware I don't need!" and of course Seinfeld & Bill) have been absolutely pathetic-- and in the case of mobile, they had a golden opportunity to rip Apple a good one over their response to the iPhone 4 antenna design flaw. I mean, come on... they had a ton of examples from other handset makers.

Watching Microsoft's recent PR is sort of like watching a grown man miss a tee-ball. In three swings.

I tend to agree. With all the money those companies wield, how hard is it to hire a top-notch ad agency? Or, for that matter, hire the best advertising people in the business and turn them loose. Microsoft's people must think that PC means "Politically Correct" not "Personal Computer."

Really, many of Microsoft's commercials are just painful to watch ("Windows 7 was my idea!" What the hell does that mean?) Well, now there was that cool X-Box ad with the baby being ejected from his mother's body, flying th

Im in no sense of the word an Apple lover. However, I do like their products. I simply will not pay for them because they are too expensive. You can buy similar hardware (from my favorite company HP or even many others such as Asus) for so much cheaper its absolutely ridiculous. Most Apple fanboys will say "Oh yeah, well it wont last as long" but that is simply not true. Not to mention, these same dickheads buy a new Apple every two years anyway.

A bit off topic, but I'd like my fellow slashdotters to do me a favor... If anything ever happens to me, pour out a 40 into the gutter for a money makin' thug. Then pour out a caffeinated beverage into the gutter for me. I'd prefer RockStar, but Monster or even English Breakfast Tea would suffice.

Okay, so we have our iPhone fans and Android fans... we need to make some room for Win7 Phone fans here. Do we just take a few volunteers now or do we wait for a few hostile stories to come along so a handful of people can conclude that those stores aren't true and become fans that way?

I saw Windows Phone 7 demoed in the keynote at Tech Ed Australia this year, and as most of the audience it was a great big "who cares". Nothing revolutionary, ugly UI. They even demoed four WM7 applications which had been developed, all of which were your standard application which sources data from a website and displays it for the phones UI. You could tell in their voices they were trying to make it sound exciting, but it's nothing iPhone/Android doesn't already have.

If you know your product is highly likely going to fail, why not add some poetry to existence by showing the maximum hubris possible?

If you can't be a good example of success, then you can also play a role of being a very loud example of failure.

The problem is that, at looking to politics and business, most extremely loud examples of failure end up being repeated anyway the very next political/financial cycle, with very little modifications to counter that same method of failure.

Interesting way to put it. After the comments by Michael Dell that Apple should have shut down when they were at their lowest point, Steve Jobs put them in his sights. When Apple's market cap exceeded Dell's, Steve Jobs sent out a company wide email about it.

Engineers and managers at Apple meet in a boring, windowless conference room to discuss how to address weaknesses in the iPhone, what features should be added and how they should be implemented, and how to sell more units.

They are so insecure that they must compare their product to the iPhone and, worst, hire dancers to dance in the street for their product. As one of the biggest software company you would expect them to set standards but they are only ride the "me, too" train. Like first Zune, the "me, too" iPod, now the WM7, the "me, too" iPhone and Android.

Microsoft as of late has been shown to be a company that doesn't even seem to know what is going on inside the company let alone the outside world. From what I have read(and just my own experience working in an unrelated but huge company) there are a lot of "empire builders" at Microsoft, ie managers who only care about increasing their influence and power in the company, nothing else. And to do that they constantly try to undermine other managers at Microsoft and give their pet project top billing. You

And of course we know that in the unlikely event that Apple survives the irresistible force that is WP7, Microsoft will acknowledge that the rumors of the iPhone's death might have been somewhat exaggerated.

Yep. Android is customizable and free: Two things that manufacturers can't get from MS. With Win 7 Phone, it appears that MS is imposing more conditions to make Win 7 Phones more consistent. That can't be looked favorably upon by manufacturers.

Because everything about the revamp of WinMo7 was to mimic Apple. Remove multitasking intentionally, remove copy and paste intentionally (even Apple rectified that long ago, but MS seems enamored of that).

MS observed that they are firmly in the 'other' category in market share, took a glance and saw Apple with the biggest slice at the time, didn't look at trend data to see where it was going nor made the connection about partners vs homegrown phone, and shamelessly started ripping it off inconsistently, bu

I'm getting tired of all this circle jerking about smart phones. There can be more than one smartphone operating system. There doesn't have to be a "victor" to have a successful smartphone OS. There's no reason that the success of Windows 7 phone (or whatever it's called, I don't really care) has to be predicated on the death of the iPhone. The two can coexist. Yes, they'll compete with each other, but there doesn't always have to be a winner and a loser.

I'm an android fan. My current phone is Android based, and my next phone will probably be android based. But if someone would prefer an iPhone, a Windows Mobile phone, a phone from Palm or Blackberry, I really don't care. The existence of competitors in no way reduces the utility of my own phone. In fact, the existence of competition probably leads to improvements for all of the phones.

Sure there could be more than one. The problems start when exclusive deals are made. Let's say for example that Skype were to make some sort of deal with Apple that excluded Android phones from decent support or your local telco makes a deal with Microsoft and supports certain network features on Windows 7 phones only. Multiple smartphone platforms would be great if corporations didn't view it as an opportunity to be dicks.

Its not a war where there is a victor and the loser is obliterated from existence. Here, the winner is simply the company/phone/OS with the most market share and the loser still exists and can even be profitable. Perhaps the phrasing needs changing, but your little gripe is moot.

It's pretty sad that the events around the launch of their product are about the iPhone rather than their own. Don't they have anything to tout about Windows phone 7? Or can they only tear down the other guy?

It is so characteristic of Microsoft to think it is more important that the iPhone fail than that Microsoft succeed. And a mock-funeral is such a sad example of sympathetic magic, and reminiscent of efforts to think away the Great Depression.

During the Great Depression, people were constantly suggesting that the U.S. think its way out of the depression simply by adopting an optimistic attitude. People put up billboards saying "Wasn't the Depression terrible?" on the assumption that if people got in the habi

...but it sure as hell is not due to Windows Phone 7... or any Microsoft product.

I work at RadioShack (yeah, only job I could find... give me a break) and it seems like the majority of people coming through are very much over the iPhone. The other cell companies are making phones that are much better than the iPhone (statistically speaking, not trying to troll some fanbois) and Google has done well with their marketing of Android OS. Apple's new releases don't bring enough new features to keep existing us

Why is everyone taking the iPhone "funeral" thing so literally as if Microsoft actually expects to be the end of the iPhone?

They're just goofing off, just like that cheesy internal marketing video that surfaced on the web a few years back. Are Microsoft employees not allowed to have any fun by poking fun at their competitors?

I'd say Office and Windows are still pretty damn relevant. However, in the mobile space - yeah, WinMo7 isn't going to change anything. iPhones and Android phones will still rule the smartphone market, and though BlackBerries are a dying breed in terms of the cutting-edge, even they will far exceed WinMo7's usage.

At this point, anyone who partners with MS has to be wary. They have a history of backstabbing them. i.e. Zune. With the KIN, the reports of less 10,000 unit sales represents a huge financial loss to Sharp who manufactured the units.